Irvington firefighters among heroes honored for valor

IRVINGTON -- In a handful of minutes last March, the men of Ladder Company 42 in Irvington went from the relative comfort of their Civic Square firehouse to confronting a 1,000-degree inferno a mile away. A deputy chief was already at the fire scene, a 2.5 story wood-frame building on Ellis Street and a neighboring house, both bubbling with flames.

“He told us there was a report of a bunch of older people trapped in there,” Capt. Nicholas Morley said, recounting the late-night blaze. “There was fire in every window, in both houses. It was a firestorm.”

In a township that has 300 abandoned buildings, several of them occupied by squatters, Morley and two firefighters, Alexandre Lima and Broden Swanson, fight several such fires each year, the 22-year department veteran said.

“It’s gut time, and we got to get in there and do what we got to do, because that’s what we get paid for,” Morley said in recounting the fires, for which the three firefighters were recognized for valorous action this week. “That’s our first job, to protect life.”

Morley, Lima and Swanson, among dozens of firefighters from throughout the state were honored and saluted by hundreds of colleagues at the Saint Barnabas Burn Foundation 22nd Annual Valor Awards Thursday night.

Once inside the house at 210 Ellis St., though, the men of Ladder 42 were dealing with a potentially lethal setback. And then one more.

“We had no water, and we got in there with a lot of fire,” Morley said.

Lima then had his oxygen mask taken off by a resident and got out.

Swanson, battling back intense heat and smoke, dropped to all fours to continue searching for the building’s occupants. He found one, an older man trying to find the front door.

Swanson, though, brought the man back to the rear of house, where four other occupants huddled against the rising heat and approaching flames. A rear door would have allowed them to get out, but it was dead-bolted shut.

The five occupants began panicking, according to the firefighters’ account. Swanson, though, got them calmed down. He radioed for assistance, and then began kicking against the locked door.

“And then other crews were able to help him force entry into the rear of the structure and helped get them out,” Morley said.

With a second neighboring house now also on fire, embers and debris were falling on the occupants and fire crews, who were encircled by a locked fence. Some had already been pulled to safety when a firefighter cut through the locked gates.

The fires took five hours to bring under control. Seven engine companies and four ladder companies, comprising about 70 colleagues, some from neighboring municipalities, worked into the morning, Morley said.

“We got relieved on the scene at about 7 in the morning, and then they were there until probably noon,” he said. Morley and two firefighters, Alexandre Lima and Broden Swanson.

The fires’ cause is still under investigation.

Three of the residents were taken to University Hospital in Newark and four firefighters were treated for smoke inhalation at the scene.

And, Morley said last week, that amounted to relatively good news.

“It’s pretty much lucky that no one got killed in there, civilians or fire,” he said.